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AP: Technology Killed Middle-Class Jobs

Published Date 1/24/13 10:35 AM

A new analysis by the Associated Press holds technology responsible for killing off millions of middle-class jobs worldwide. “Year after year, the software that runs computers and an array of other machines and devices becomes more sophisticated and powerful and capable of doing more efficiently tasks that humans have always done,” writes the AP’s Bernard Condon and Paul Wiseman. “For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines; an Associated Press analysis finds that the future has arrived.” They say that half of the 7.5 million jobs lost in the US “during the Great Recession” were middle-class-wage jobs. Of the 3.4 million jobs created since, only 2 percent pay in a range from US$37,000 to $68,000. In 17 European Union countries, more middle class jobs have been and continue to be lost. A total of 7.6 million such jobs were lost between January 2008 and June 2012. The analysis finds the jobs lost span a wide range -- from manufacturing to those involving repetitive tasks, including office managers, travel agents, payroll clerks, meter readers, and paralegals. (USAToday)(Boing Boing)(The Associated Press)

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